Sunday, October 7, 2012

Tipping Points Considered Dangerous

A while back, discussions of Arctic sea ice, methane, and
other related matters seemed dominated by the idea that there was a “tipping
point” involved, a point before which we could return to the halcyon equilibria
of yore, and after which we were irrevocably committed to a new, unspecified,
but clearly disastrous equilibrium.
Surprisingly, this idea was recently revived as the overriding theme of
a British Government report assessing trends in Arctic sea ice and their likely
effects on the UK itself. It is cast as
a debate between Profs. Slingo of the Met Office and Wadhams, and the report
comes out in indirect but clear support of Wadham’s position that these trends
are in no sense “business as usual”.
However, it casts this conclusion as the idea that there are “tipping
points” in methane emissions, carbon emissions, and sea ice extent, that these
are in danger of being crossed, and that once these are crossed the consequences
are inevitable and dire – an idea that seems prevalent in national discussions
of an emissions “target” of no more than enough tonnage to cause no more than 2
degrees Centigrade warming by 2100.

Here, I’ll pause for a bit of personal reminiscence. My late
father-in-law, who was a destroyer captain in WW II, told me that once during
the early days of the US’ involvement, during a storm in the North Atlantic,
the destroyer heeled over by 35 degrees. Had it heeled over by 1 or 2 more
degrees, it would have turned turtle and probably all lives aboard would have
been lost. As it was, it righted itself with no casualties.

That, to me, is a real “tipping point”. The idea is that up
to a certain amount of deviation, the tendency is to return to the equilibrium
point; beyond that, a new equilibrium results. 35 degrees or less, the ship
tends to return to an upright position; beyond that, it tends to go to an
upside down position, and stay there.

So what’s wrong with applying the idea of such a tipping
point to what’s going on in climate change?
Superficially, at least, it’s a great way to communicate urgency, via
the idea that even if it’s not obvious to all that there’s a problem, we are
rapidly approaching a point of no return.

Problem One: It Ain’t True

More specifically, if there ever was a “tipping point” in
Arctic sea ice, carbon emissions, and methane emissions, we are long past
it. The correct measure of Arctic sea
ice trends, now validated by Cryosat, is volume. That has been on an accelerating
downward trend just about since estimates began in 1979, clearly driven by
global warming, which in turn is clearly driven by human-caused carbon
emissions. Carbon emissions themselves have risen in an accelerated fashion
from about 1 ppm/year in 1950 at the start of measurements to about 2.1-2.5
ppm/year today. Methane emissions from natural sources (a follow-on to carbon
emissions’ effect on rising global temperature) were not clearly a factor until
very recently, but it is becoming clear that they have risen a minimum of
20-30% over the last decade, and are accelerating. By way of context, these methane
emissions are accompanied by additional carbon emissions beyond those in
present models, with the methane emissions being about 3% and the carbon
emissions being about 97% of added emissions from such sources as permafrost,
but with the methane being 20 to 70 times as potent, for a net effect that is
double or triple that of the added carbon emissions alone – an effect that adds
(in a far too optimistic forecast) around 0.5 to 1 degree Celsius to previous warming
forecasts by 2100.

In other words, it is extremely likely that the idea of keeping
global warming to 2 degrees Celsius is toast, even if our carbon atmospheric
ppm levels off at around 450.

Problem Two: We Need To Understand It Can Always Get Worse

Yet the idea that we can combat global warming deniers or
make things plain to folks reasonably preoccupied with their own problems by
saying “we’re on a slippery slope, we’re getting close to a disaster” is that
it is all too easily obfuscated or denied, and the sayer labeled as one who “cries
wolf.” Rather, we need to communicate the idea of a steadily increasing problem
in which doing nothing is bad and doing the wrong thing (in this case, adapting
to climate change by using more energy for air conditioning and therefore
drilling for more oil and natural gas, increasing emissions) is even worse. This
idea is one that all too many voters in democracies find it hard to understand,
as they vote to “throw the bums out” when the economy turns bad without being
clear about whether the alternative proposal is better. How’s that working out for you, UK?

The sad fact is that even when things are dreadful, they can
always get worse – as Germany found out when it went from depression and a
Communist scare to Hitler. It requires that both politicians and voters somehow
manage to find better solutions, not just different ones. For example, in Greece today, it appears (yes, I may be uninformed) that
one party that was briefly voted in may well have had a better solution that
involved questioning austerity and renegotiating the terms of European support.
Two parties committed to doing nothing, and one far right-wing party committed
to unspecified changes in government that probably threatened democracy. After
failing to give the “good” party enough power in one election, the voters
returned power to the two do-nothing parties, with the result that the
situation continues to get worse. Now, more than a fifth of voters have
gravitated to the far-right party, which would manage to make things yet
worse.

And that is the message that climate change without tipping
points is delivering: not that changing our ways is useless because we have
failed to avoid a tipping point, but doing the right thing is becoming more
urgent because if we do nothing, things will get worse in an accelerating
fashion, and if we do the wrong thing, things will get even worse than
that. Tipping point? One big effort, and it’ll be over one way or
another. Accelerating slide? You pay me
now, or you pay me much more later.

Or Is That Au Revoir?

An old British comedy skit in the revue Beyond the Fringe, a
take-off on WW II movies, has one character tell another: “Perkins, we need a futile gesture at this
stage. Pop over to France. Don’t come back.” The other responds: “Then goodbye,
sir. Or perhaps it’s au revoir [until we meet again]?” The officer looks at him
and simply says “No, Perkins.”

The idea of a tipping point in climate change is like that
hope that somehow, some way, things just might return to the good old days. But
there is no au revoir. Say goodbye to
tipping points. Say hello to “it can always get worse.”

Wayne Kernochan

About Me

I have recently retired. Before retirement, I was a long-time computer industry analyst at firms like Aberdeen Group and Yankee Group, and before that a programmer at Prime Computer and Computer Corp. of America. Sloan/MIT MBA, Cornell Computer Science Master's, and Harvard college degrees. Used to play the violin, and have written unpublished books about personal finance, violin playing, and the relationship between religion and mathematics, as well as three plays, two musicals, a screenplay on climate change, short stories, and poetry. I intend to use this blog in future both to continue to enjoy the computing field and to pursue my interests in many other areas (e.g., climate change, history, issues of the day).